"A screwup in epic fashion. They had one job and they screwed it up."
CNN's Chris Cuomo, this morning.
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| Low tech at Iowa State Fair |
The party of good government needs to be good at governing. This isn't optional.
The Iowa Democratic Party is describing "inconsistencies" in the results. It keeps them from announcing the results of the caucuses.
People reporting election results in the precincts last night were supposed to use an app. It didn't work for some unknown reason. There was supposed to be a phone backup. People calling in sat on hold, and then got disconnected. The Iowa Democratic Party vote counters are going back and doing things by hand. Everyone is waiting.
Network news panels of eight people were lined up ready and eager to opine on the results. Without results, they each talked about what they had to talk about. Inconsistencies. Delays. Frustration. Chaos. CNN calls it an "Awful, awful embarrassment. A stain."
That is the news being reported last night and this morning, but it isn't the real message. Trump understood the message: Incompetence and untrustworthy government.
"The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country."
His campaign manager wrote, "It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run the entire health system."
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| Conspiracy. |
The Trump sons are inserting conspiracy into the mix: This isn't an accident. The election is rigged. You cannot trust elections. You just cannot trust government. It is corrupted by unseen conspirators.
It gets worse. Today, in the Senate chamber, a majority will explain why they reject the Democratic effort to impeach Trump. They say that Democrats did impeachment wrong, an exercise in futility from the start. Democrats lose even when they are right. Incompetent. Losers.
Tonight Trump will brag about American success. The stock market is high. Unemployment is low. He said the country was carnage when he was inaugurated and he says it is wonderful now. He claims the eleven year recovery is his, all his. Obama didn't describe what was happening as a recovery; Trump described it as failure, then, two months into his presidency, as a record of great achievement. Democrats let him get away with that.
Trump sells, better and stronger than any Democrat. America is now great and getting better, he says. There is no recession in close sight.
Last night should have been Sanders' night to do a victory lap. Sanders has a message of unsolved and persistent problems. People without health care, oppressive drug prices, crushing student debt, income inequality. Corruption at the top. He has an optimistic goal but it starts from a premise of injustice and unmet needs. Government can solve it; medicare for all. Sanders did not ruin the Iowa caucuses, but he was the primary victim of it.
Pete Buttigieg is on TV looking premature and presumptuous for claiming victory, but the real victor last night was Trump.
Democrats are the party of good government, and last night was a disaster.
3 comments:
ENTERED ON BEHALF OF THAD GUYER:
Just for now, we gotta blame the Russians or Trump or somebody! The fiasco in Iowa by the local Democratic Party, with technical assistance from the DNC, has allowed us to showcase an electoral process akin to say, Bolivia. Trump immediately trolled the disaster by tweeting that the same party operatives would be appointed to run Medicare for All and the Green New Deal for a Democratic administration. Chris Wallace of FoxNews predicted it would certainly disqualify Iowa from its historic first-in-the-nation status if not end the Iowa caucuses altogether. The political statistician Nate Silver said in an "emergency podcast" at midnight that the cause-and-effect of the calamity might empirically have changed who the Democratic convention nominee otherwise would have been by altering the trajectory of electoral momentum. The caucus results will not include the powerful springboard of momentum the rightful winner would have had.
After a lengthy investigation, vote recount and likely litigation by the Biden campaign or others, the cause(s) will almost certainly be proven to include vote tampering, shoddy software, and/or gross incompetence. Biden has already claimed the vote tally will be presumptively illegitimate. Pete Buttiege claimed his "internal" counts proves he was the winner! Elizabeth Warren asserted the non-results showed she outperformed her polling in "race to close to call".
So let's take stock of the Democratic 2020 primary season to date. We have (1) created a series of absurdly crowded debates allowing voters to learn almost nothing; (2) weeded out every candidate of color; (3) absented both female candidates who are Senators from the campaign trail to attend the impeachment spectacle; (4) changed the rules to allow billionaire Michael Bloomberg to buy his way into the next debate by eliminating the numerical donor requirement; and (5) brought ridicule and embarrassment to our party while simultaneously creating invaluable talking points for Trump. Did I miss anything?
Even Vladmir Putin himself could not have engineered such "election interference".
BY, THAD GUYER
You missed the DNC's stacking of the democratic convention platform and rules committees with rightists, including John Podesta who with Wasserman Shultz helped "stick a knife" in the 2016 Sanders' campaign, the DCCC and DSCC's blacklisting of vendors and consultants who work for incumbent challengers in the primaries. As Bernie gains steam, expect more panic and rigging to come.
Andy Seles
I lost $20 in 2916 betting that Trump could not win. This year, I have $100 riding on it. And I am totally prepared now to lose it.
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